Sunday, 10 June 2012

Finally made some time to cleanse my work room of some the debris that had been building up in the there over the last couple months. I was sad to see some of it go (you never know when you'll need some multicolored interconnect...) but, overall, it felt good to purge. Was getting chaotic in there!

Tubes, chassis and wires!

I actually "necked" a yoke-free Philips A66EAK while pulling stuff out of the car at the rubbish dump. Was a little frightening as there was a crazy rush of gas when the glass tubing broke. Quite dramatic! Luckily it wasn't a tube of value...

The unhappy ending for discarded TVs...

In other news, I got around to trying out a tiny Sanyo I found on the side of the street a while back. I couldn't get an image using my home-made VGA to SCART cable but it fired up just fine using my new Arcade ForgeUMSA. Looks pretty nice actually!

Sunday, 3 June 2012

Well, "Real Life (tm)" has certainly interrupted my SCART hunt in recent times... spending time with friends, getting drunk, playing in my band, walking on the beach, listening to music, going to work, etc. All weak excuses, I know, but I'm here to pick up where I left off...

It's time to review Arcade Forge's UMSA (AKA Ultimate SCART Adaptor)!

Arcade Forge's UMSA - Ultimate SCART Adapter

What's the point of this UMSA thing?

Firstly, did you know you can use a SCART television as an arcade monitor substitute to play your favourite arcade and console games in full CRT glory? You didn't? Surely you did... you found my blog! Okay, if you're a random arrival, go read here. Everyone else, read on...

Blaupunkt SCART television as arcade monitor

So, anyone that's managed to crack into the magical world of VGA to SCART will know that there are a few hurdles you need to get over before you can experience the sheer joy of seeing your favourite retrogames back on a lovely, warm CRT screen (instead of nasty LCD).

First off, you have to find a decent SCART television. Easy in Europe or the UK, not too hard in Australia but pretty much impossible anywhere else in the world. Or so I've heard...

Second step is building your own VGA to SCART cable. Unless you can find someone willing to do the work for you, going DIY is really your only hope. Sounds like a simple proposition at first but things get tricky real quick. Dressing VGA and SCART cables is a very fiddly and confusing job. Then, once you've sorted out which strand is which, you face the infuriating task of soldering over a dozen wires into place on a SCART or VGA connector (or both, depending on your chosen construction). Trust me, this is extremely tedious work! I've built around 10 cables and I can now produce very clean and neat VGA to SCART cables. However, despite knowing the exact steps involved, it still takes me 2 to 3 hours of intense work and concentration to do the job right. Plus, my first few cables were disasters! I made mistakes, they were messy and simply didn't work the first time I plugged them in. It was only after painstaking fault finding that I was even able to get a picture showing. Even once I got them working they would break easily and had to be treated very delicately. Very frustrating and a real black hole for time. I won't even go into the depths of frustration you'll feel if you somehow Google the wrong schematic at the start of the process...

This is the whole point of the UMSA. Even if you're someone who's confident with a pair of wire strippers and a soldering iron, this gadget will save you a huge amount of time and effort. If you know nothing about soldering, don't even bother going down the DIY path! Just get yourself over to Aracde Forge and buy a UMSA. Trust me, it's the easiest (and arguably cheapest) way to get SCART gaming fast! If this option had of existed when I got into MAME/SCART, I would definitely have taken it.

Oh, I did mention that there were three steps... well, the third is to install some software that will allow your VGA to output the correct frequencies for use with a CRT television. Thanks to software such as Soft-15kHz and the CRT_EmuDriver (for ATI video cards), this step is a lot simpler to complete than the second.

In summary, the UMSA is designed to seriously streamline the setup of a PC (or Mac) and CRT based emulation system. There's no soldering involved: purely plug and play!

Just how much easier is the UMSA?

Here's how the Arcade Forge guys see things. The following steps were copied straight from their website:

Step 0: Install on your PC lower resolution with 15Khz. We propose to use Soft15Khz made by SailorSat. Turn off your PC.

Most people will never have to worry about Step 5 and the preceding steps are all incredibly simple. I know that earlier I said there were only 3 steps (find a TV, make a cable, setup your display driver) but that second step, making a VGA to SCART cable, involves over 100 hundred intermediate steps... none of that with the UMSA.

If you've ever attempted to make your own VGA to SCART cable before you'll already be appreciating the simplicity of what the UMSA has to offer. If you've never made your own cable and you're still thinking "I could save a few bucks by going DIY" then it's time for me to mention that the UMSA was designed by the absolute gurus of VGA to SCART gaming. Their schematic is a superior design, has gone through extensive testing and is built to a very high standard. I will freely admit that even my best soldering work could never match the quality of the UMSA I was sent for testing.

What other features does the UMSA have?

Thanks to the thoughtful design philosophy of the UMSA, you can use any brand of SCART, VGA and RCA audio cable you choose. So, if you want to use the cheapo $1 Chinese made VGA cable you bought on eBay, that's okay. The beauty of the UMSA is that you could also choose to use professional grade video cable and audiophile quality audio cable if you're so inclined. It's your choice. Also, you can determine the length of the cable yourself. This is a very cool aspect of the UMSA since it offers flexibility in price, quality and cable length.

Also, the use of an external 5v power adapter to control the switching voltages (that set your TV to the correct RGB input mode and picture ratio) means that you don't have to worry about compatibility between video cards or wiring up some messy setup that draws from your computer's power supply in order to provide the correct voltages. Much cleaner and safer the UMSA way.

The UMSA in action!

Thefollowing screen shots show the kind of image quality you can expect once you've correctly setup your PC and connected it to a SCART television using the UMSA. To demonstrate the compatibility of the UMSA, I'll update this review to include screenshots from several different brands and television models in the future. For now though, the included screenshots are of my main Blaupunkt that I modified to have external picture controls. Also, GroovyMAME was used in conjunction with the CRT_EmuDriver to reproduce the native resolutions and refresh rates each game.

Street Fighter II (title)

Street Fighter II (in game)

Mortal Kombat II (title)

Mortal Kombat II (in game)

Ghouls'n Ghosts (title)

Ghouls'n Ghosts (in game)

Rainbow Islands (title)

Rainbow Islands (in game)

Pretty nice, eh?!

Conclusion

In my opinion, the UMSA is seriously one of the best things to happen to SCART gaming. It provides retro gamers with a simple and cheap method of recreating the visual aspect of arcade (and console) gaming using cheap yet high quality SCART televisions. It's incredibly simple to setup and the results are spectacular.

For anyone just getting in SCART gaming, I can't recommend this product enough! For those who already have a working VGA to SCART setup, I urge you to check out what the UMSA has to offer. You might find that the excellent build quality of the UMSA and ability to use high quality VGA and SCART interconnects provides worthwhile quality boost over your current setup.

Overall, an outstanding product! Well done Arcade Forge!

Extra screenshots:

Some vertical games running on a little Sanyo C14EA10 (chassis A7-A14):

Raiden (title screen)

Raiden (in game)

1942 (title screen)

1942 (in game)

Extras shots:

Here's a stack of screenshots showing the UMSA working with a variety (brand, size, chassis type, etc) of SCART televisions (test units courtesy of Rob):